Economy

...What Detroit is facing is not really that unique. In fact, Detroit is a perfect example of what the future of America is going to look like. We live in a nation that is rotting, decaying, drowning in debt and racing toward insolvency. Already there are dozens of other cities across the nation that are poverty-ridden, crime-infested hellholes just like Detroit is, and hundreds of other communities are rapidly heading in that direction. So don't look down on Detroit. They just got there before the rest of us.

During the fiscal cliff debate in December 2012, people assumed tax rates would be much higher in following years. That precipitated an enormous amount of accelerated income and dividend payments that would have been made in 2013. Because of the higher income booked in Q4 2012, estimated tax payments due January 15, 2013, soared. This reduced the size of the expected Q1 deficit.

If the Treasury agrees to an audit and the gold is not there, the result will be much unpleasantness – possible indictments, damaged reputations, social unrest, chaos, disillusionment, and destroyed trust – and there is plenty of disillusionment and destroyed trust already.

It could have been worse! Western central banks (officially) and governments sold a considerable sum of gold during the 1990s to help repress the price of gold and to slow the apparent decline in the value of paper money. They also “leased” an unknown amount of gold to bullion banks who also sold that gold into the market. The leases are still “on the books,” so the central banks officially still own the gold, even though it is probably long gone – likely to China, Russia, India, and the Middle East.

Much of that austerity is in the form of across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration that were forced by Republicans in Congress. But Mr. Obama supported an end this year to both a temporary payroll-tax cut, which the Congressional Budget Office and private analysts credited with spurring consumer spending and creating jobs, and the Bush-era income tax cuts for the wealthy. What stimulus remains in the American economy can be credited to the expansionary monetary policies of the independent Federal Reserve System.

“This is not the appropriate way to address his government partners,” Pasok said in a statement, adding that a three-way coalition “can only operate on the basis of mutual respect.” The smallest partner, the Democratic Left, sounded a similar note. “If in actions and in words — as in today’s incendiary speech by Mr. Samaras — the government partners are sidestepped, then the government’s cohesion is at risk,” the party said in a statement.

When water is pumped into a reservoir, the pressure difference forces the water away from the injection well and towards the production well through the tiny rock pores. These pores are all interconnected by very narrow tunnel-like passages, and the water accelerates as it squeezes its way through them.

"We wanted to determine whether a colony's genetic diversity has an impact on its survival, and what that impact may be," says Dr. David Tarpy, an associate professor of entomology at North Carolina State University and lead author of a paper describing the study. "We knew genetic diversity affected survival under controlled conditions, but wanted to see if it held true in the real world. And, if so, how much diversity is needed to significantly improve a colony's odds of surviving."

Gold & Silver

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